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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24682093">Pit Stop</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/via_hiptop/pseuds/via_hiptop'>via_hiptop</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Armor Kink, Ass Play, Beware: Feelings, Blindfolds, Choking, Dirty Talk, Dom/sub Undertones, F/M, Multiple Orgasms, Oral Sex, PG Level Drug Dealing, Smut, mild exhibitionism</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 07:16:04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>19,626</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24682093</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/via_hiptop/pseuds/via_hiptop</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Paz Vizla is strapped for cash and stranded planetside in the Core Worlds, taking on odd jobs to pay off his overpriced mechanic.</p><p>At a fancy fundraiser, he meets a woman who could make this unplanned pit stop a lot more enjoyable.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Paz Vizla/Reader, Paz Vizla/You</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>197</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Pit Stop</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Paz didn’t like this. Hate was a strong word, he’d decided, so <em> dislike </em>was the one he landed on - if only to save his sanity.</p><p>The mechanic wasn’t giving him the key fob until he paid, so here he was. Just... standing guard at this art museum, protecting the valuables during this grotesquely extravagant fundraiser.</p><p>Part of him knew he could’ve muscled his way back onto his ship and off this hoity-toity hellhole of a planet without paying, but that wasn’t how he operated anymore. His increasing age had brought a steady - albeit reluctant - wisdom, a solidifying duty to represent his clan well in public.</p><p>A drunk party-goer stumbled backwards into him, spilling his purple wine over the top of Paz’s boot.</p><p>“<em>Watch it</em>,” his voice whipped through his vocoder, tilting his helmet down condescendingly while the drunkard laughed it off, carrying on with his friends.</p><p>Okay, fine. He fucking hated this shit. All these people, all dressed up to try and impress one another, pretending to care about whatever charitable cause they were throwing their credits at this cycle. The galaxy had real problems, and he didn’t understand how <em> this </em>could ever solve them. All the fake kisses placed over each others’ cheeks, the self-absorbed stories they’d tell - too loud and too animated. Too proud.</p><p>It was easy pay, at least. A few more weekends of sticking out like a sore thumb at these prim little galas, and he’d be gone.</p><p>2100. Right on cue. The lighting in the gallery dimmed, blurring the guests’ painted faces into shapeless, dark shadows. A golden spotlight shone in the center as pre-recorded music swelled and echoed off the polished marble floors and white walls.</p><p>And that’s precisely when he saw you. Across the room, on the other side of the circled crowd, with a delicate, long-stemmed glass pinched between two fingers. Your eyes were unfocused on the performance beginning between the two of you. They looked almost detached to Paz, like this scene was doing as little for you as it was for him.</p><p>You must’ve sensed his staring. As if a blaster had fired, your gaze snapped to attention and landed squarely onto him, boring into the blue beskar and tinted visor of his helmet.</p><p>To anyone else who may have been watching, it looked like you were enraptured by the two dancers, caught up in the artful spectacle of their combined movements.</p><p>But you weren’t. It was him. This gigantic mass of Mandalorian iron and worn leather and rigid muscle, a dented and scuffed mess in comparison to the sleek, arching lines of the venue.</p><p>Slowly, you brought the delicate glass to your mouth, draining the last of its contents in one long swallow. A small drop clung to your bottom lip, which you wiped away with an elegant swipe of your finger.</p><p>A glimmer of something wicked flashed in your eyes as you did it, never letting them stray from Paz. The tiniest smirk twitched up his face, hidden from view, as he watched you. He drank in the way your hair fell down your right shoulder, shining and soft and feminine. He was imagining how it smelled - what dizzying blend of expensive perfumes would fill his lungs if he buried his face in it.</p><p>Your dress left little to the imagination. It was gauzy and slightly sheer, wrapping your curves in teasing black chiffon, offering him glimpses of what you hid underneath.</p><p>Could you feel him devouring you like this? How his eyes sought to undress you from meters away, how his mind began peeling away layers to reveal smooth, naked skin?</p><p>The applause startled him. You must’ve seen him jump, if the slow, crooked smile spreading across your face was any indicator. In the shuffle of the dispersing crowd, you were lost.</p><p>Fuck.</p><p>He could roam. Yeah, now that he thought about it, a little perimeter check would be a <em> good </em>thing. His employer would be so impressed with his proactive attitude.</p><p>So he walked. Down the spiral staircase to the mezzanine, peering around towering avant garde sculptures. He doubled back upstairs, stalking the maze-like hallways, the lines for the refresher, the crowded throng at the bar.</p><p>He searched every corner of this gods-forsaken museum until finally, on the wraparound terrace overlooking the garden below, a faint wisp of a greeting lilted behind him.</p><p>“I haven’t seen a Mandalorian in years.”</p><p>He turned, watching as you stepped - no, stars, stepped was wrong, you fucking <em> glided </em>- towards him, like gentle smoke lifting off a flame.</p><p>“You must not leave the Core Worlds often,” he replied.</p><p>You came to his side at the terrace railing, looking out over the glittering lights of the city below and the tangle of traffic above. A biting chuckle tumbled past your lips.</p><p>“No. Though I’m not sure why.”</p><p>A fresh glass was in your grasp again. Your fingers played idly with the stem and base. Your eyes had abandoned the aloofness from inside, and instead were filled with a sort of misunderstood longing, a far-off look that seemed a little lost and out of place.</p><p>“I don’t much care for…” you trailed off, gesturing backwards towards the hum of the crowd, “<em>this </em>sort of thing. I can’t imagine you do either.”</p><p>Paz’s shoulders relaxed down at your admission. He’d been right about you, about how you’d shared a similar distaste for this kind of ostentatious, in-your-face phoniness. He shook his head and tilted his helmet down towards you, allowing the intimacy of the conversation to guide him closer.</p><p>If he was lucky, maybe the scent of you would find its way past the filter of his helmet.</p><p>“Then why are you here?” he teased lightly.</p><p>You laughed, in a way that told him you found more than just his question funny. Maker, your smile was magnetic, pulling at the plates of his armor. He couldn’t help but match it beneath his steel.</p><p>“Well, Mandalorian,” you squared off to him playfully. “I’m afraid I can’t tell you that.”</p><p>“It’s Paz,” he said, extending his gloved palm to yours, dwarfing it as you shook hands. “And I believe my status as lead security for tonight’s event entitles me to an answer.”</p><p>Kriff, he was laying it on thick.</p><p>“For security purposes, of course,” he added.</p><p>You smirked up at him, mirroring the mischief in his voice with a devious sparkle that danced across your eyes.</p><p>“Lead security, huh?” you sparred. “Sounds important.”</p><p>“Very.”</p><p>You took a small sip of your drink, peeking over the rim of the glass up into his visor. It offered no hints of what he looked like - an unknown variable you found wildly interesting. Your body was responding to it in a way that confused and excited you, filling you with the nervous thrill that came with trying something new.</p><p>Paz saw all the hints. It certainly was not the first time a beautiful woman had shown interest. He’d learned that under the helmet, he could be whatever they wanted him to be.</p><p>“I’m one of the artists,” you finally offered. “But nobody knows that. Just the museum curator.”</p><p>Paz hummed. He’d overhead some of the guests gossiping over who the mystery painter could be. The general consensus seemed to be that you were a man, and an old one at that - some eccentric billionaire who had found a new way to entertain himself by infiltrating the art world.</p><p>Paz laughed to himself at how wrong they’d all been.</p><p>“Not a fan of attention?” he guessed.</p><p>Impossible, in that dress. You wanted people to look. You shook your head.</p><p>“It’s not really that. It’s more wanting to be a fly on the wall,” you answered, pausing as a far-way sigh seemed to carry you even closer to him. “I’ve always enjoyed watching crowds more than being a part of them.”</p><p>Paz felt trapped somehow under your gaze, like the muscles and tendons of his body were unnaturally rigid beneath fresh, feverish skin. It was like he was being tied up and teased, like he’d accidentally brushed a bare hand over that curious sex pollen he’d read about on Lothal.</p><p>“Plus,” you continued with a small flourish of your wrist, “I quite enjoy hearing unfiltered opinions of my work. There’s something about these people… it’s like they never want to be real with you.”</p><p>Paz hadn’t had a conversation like this in ages. Let alone one with a woman so unfairly beautiful. Your revelations felt like his own revelations - that undercurrent of constant unease, of knowing you’re an outsider, of being part of a world and yet so helplessly outside of it at the same time... Like his ship, how it had sputtered to a halt, reduced floating in the nothingness of open space, its engines dead and caught halfway between home and where he needed to go.</p><p>“Sounds to me like we’re both wearing a mask,” he said, his observant, uncharacteristically wise sentiment surprising even him.</p><p>Your eyes darted around the planes of his helmet, sweeping across its dichotomous hard lines and curved edges. He was simultaneously a warrior and a gallant knight; chaotic blaster fire and calm seas.</p><p>You were captivated.</p><p>“Do you ever take it off?” you asked.</p><p>You’d drifted even closer to him. You could feel the body heat rolling off of him, even through the plating, spreading down your limbs to settle in your chest. Fragrant breezes wafted up from the garden just past the terrace railing.</p><p>He paused, letting the spilling light from inside the museum flash off his polished visor as his eyes dragged over you.</p><p>“Do you?” he countered.</p><p>———</p><p>He didn’t take you home that night.</p><p>He really wanted to. <em> Really </em>wanted to, so badly that his cock couldn’t seem to calm itself as he settled down for sleep. The small room he rented was cold and spartan, a far cry from what he was sure you were used to.</p><p>It was embarrassment, really, that kept him from making a move - of what you would think of his current arrangement, too broke to get off this polluted, artificially pretty little rock.</p><p>He let his dreams swirl thick with heady images of you tangled with him atop the mattress; how your spindled, dainty fingers would look stretched over his chest as he filled you; the nearly musical way you’d whine underneath him.</p><p>He couldn’t believe his dumb luck when he saw you the next night at the cantina across the street. It was <em> not </em>the sort of place he imagined you’d willingly patronize.</p><p>In fact, he almost didn’t recognize you at first, dressed so casually in a simple utilitarian jumpsuit, its well-worn fabric sporting irregular splotches of inky black paint. You were seated at the bar with an empty glass, waiting to get the bartender’s attention. A man with a long ponytail and dark stubble was propped against the countertop beside you, leaning in close.</p><p>Paz watched from a distance.</p><p>Your eyes were disengaged, like they had been before you spotted him in the crowd at the gala, staring straight ahead towards no particular point. The man was getting close to your face, asking questions Paz couldn’t quite make out, using his hands to punctuate his words.</p><p>Your fist was clenching and unclenching beneath the bar top, coiling tight atop your thigh, hidden from view.</p><p>Paz’s legs started moving before his brain did.</p><p>“Hey,” he used his best head-of-security voice, placing a firm hand atop the man’s shoulder. “Move along.”</p><p>You turned over to him, eyes skeptically narrowing as they traversed from his helmet to his gloved hand to the stranger’s gaunt face.</p><p>“Chill, tin can,” the man spat, shoving his shoulder out from underneath Paz’s grip. “Can’t a guy show a lady a little attention?”</p><p>You opened your mouth to sass him, but found yourself cut off.</p><p>“I said <em> move. </em>She’s not interested.”</p><p>Paz shifted himself protectively between the two of you, working as a human shield. You wrestled with a combination of caustic defiance - because goddamnit you could <em> hold your own </em> - and girlish fawning - because goddamnit he was <em> sexy </em> and he was standing up for you.</p><p>The man guffawed behind you as you turned back to face the bar, content to let the big bad blue man handle this one.</p><p>“How the kark do you know <em> that</em>?” the stranger barked, still not getting the memo. He called your name, petulant and annoying, trying to pull you from Paz’s attention.</p><p>It dawned on Paz that he’d never gotten your name. It was pretty. Like you.</p><p>“Stars,” you muttered with a severe roll of your eyes. “Fenk,” you shouted towards the bartender, “I’m out. What do I owe you?”</p><p>He grumbled on the other side of the bar, poking one of his eye stalks around the corner of its central shelving unit.</p><p>“Fifteen,” he answered in a clipped grunt, too busy to be bothered with bringing out a proper check.</p><p>Paz watched as you fished through your pockets, tossing a twenty-credit chip onto the counter before sliding off your stool. The ponytailed paramour skittered off, waving his hands up in frustration as you sized up the Mandalorian in front of you.</p><p>“Thank you,” you blinked up at him.</p><p>Paz didn’t miss a beat.</p><p>“Let me walk you home.”</p><p>A roguish grin inched up the side of your face.</p><p>“Didn’t come here for a drink, huh?” you teased, pushing past him with a wink and strutting out of the blastdoor.</p><p>Paz reeled beneath his armor, chasing after you out of the cantina onto the street. They were filled with the smells of cooking meat and rotting garbage, cheap chemicals and stale urine. He — fuck, <em> what </em>were you doing here, on this side of town?</p><p>“I did, actually,” he defended. “But --”</p><p>“Do you like rice wine?” you asked over your shoulder, slowing your steps <em> just </em>barely so he could catch up.</p><p>Paz sidled up next to you, keeping in step on the dirty sidewalk.</p><p>“Sure,” he stammered. “But why—”</p><p>“Good,” you flashed that wild grin. “We’re here.”</p><p>You turned abruptly into a small alcove with a single metal door - only a stone’s throw away from the cantina - and punched a code into the rusted control panel. It opened with a grating rattle.</p><p><em> Wait</em>. “You live here?”</p><p>He knew he wasn’t the galaxy’s brightest mind, much preferring his brawn over his brain anyway, but Paz was thrown for a loop. The woman in the extravagantly sexy gown, at the opulent fundraising gala, the unknown artist, lived in the slums?</p><p>You nodded matter-of-factly over your shoulder, ascending the single staircase that wound its way up the building, branching off at each landing to a series of apartment doors. The discolored brick in the stairwell had crumbled from years of disrepair, leaving a thin layer of dust that collected along the baseboards. A rodent squeaked somewhere on a floor above your heads.</p><p>Your apartment door was sleek and black, painted over with a high-gloss coating - so different from the others you’d passed on the way up the stairs.</p><p>Inside that door, the space - your home - was just as intriguing as you were to Paz. Large canvases, some blank, some stuck on their journey between blank and completed, leaned precariously against white walls. The slatted window panes were cranked open, letting a delicate evening breeze roll through the room. Your bed was perched atop a low, wooden platform.</p><p>He let his eyes roam, taking in the sights and scents, the way the floorboards creaked and complained under his heavy boots. You’d been burning something in here, dried flowers or fragrant herbs or <em> something. </em>It was warm and comforting, working the tension out of his muscles.</p><p>He tried not to get caught staring at your ass as you bent down, digging through your cooling cabinet for the rice wine.</p><p>By the time you’d turned around with a glass for him, Paz had taken up interest in a collection of broken decorative plates, their patterns and jagged edges layering chaotically over each other inside a large metal crate.</p><p>“I’m saving those for a future project,” you explained with a soft smile, extending out the drink for him to take.</p><p>You’d put a straw in it, so he didn’t need to remove his helmet. His face grew warm at the gesture.</p><p>“Thank you,” he nodded, touching his glass to yours in a wordless toast.</p><p>You noticed the darting of his helmet, the silent search for a place to sit.</p><p>“I don’t have any furniture,” you casually shrugged. “Takes up too much space.”</p><p>Paz nodded, feeling so bold as to take a seat on the edge of your bed. You bit down on your lip and turned back towards the wall of unfinished art, desperately hiding the blush that burned your cheeks from seeing him perched on the end of your mattress, so <em> broad </em> and warm-blooded and coolly confident.</p><p>Fuck, were you really going to do this? Were you <em> allowed </em>to do this? Did Mandalorians have… rules about this sort of thing? You gulped your chilled rice wine as if it held the answers.</p><p>“You look like you could use a rest,” he said behind you. The smirk in his voice was obvious.</p><p>You peeked at him over your shoulder, throwing a teasing little look his way.</p><p>“Is that so?”</p><p>The straw was shoved up under the lip of his helmet. You could see the muscles of his neck just barely contract as he swallowed a particularly large mouthful of the drink.</p><p>He nodded. “Yup. Your bed’s awfully comfy, y’know.”</p><p>You turned to face him fully, swaying your hips as you closed the distance between you, coming to stand between his spread knees. His thighs were thick and looked impossibly strong - a fact you were somehow completely certain of, convinced it wasn’t some visual trick of his armor.</p><p>“Are you trying to seduce me in my own home, Mandalorian?” you joked, arching a playful eyebrow.</p><p>A low, rumbling chuckle worked its way through his chest.</p><p>“Is it working?” he kidded, making you match his laughter. “And my name is Paz, if you don’t remember.”</p><p>“I remember,” you smirked again, knocking back another gulp of your wine before setting it on the floor beside the bed.</p><p>You kicked your boots off and sat beside him, pausing to study the scraped and pitted surface on his cuirass. Your hand reached out, ghosting over a particularly ragged slice that bisected his left pec.</p><p>“What kind of paint is this?” you murmured, inspecting the armor’s craftsmanship. It was impeccably made.</p><p>Paz made a small grunt. “I don’t know. I just… asked for blue.”</p><p>You pressed your lips together, giving his chest another <em> purely </em>exploratory once-over - you know, investigative, an attempt to piece together what sort of paint this was, not at all a blatant excuse to check him out.</p><p>Or so you told yourself.</p><p>“If you took this off,” you suggested, running your finger from the slash up towards the strap over his shoulder, “I could mix something up. Color-match it. Get you looking brand new.”</p><p>Paz couldn’t stop staring at the swell of your bottom lip, how its flushed pink skin looked pinched thoughtfully between your teeth. He wrapped his hand around yours over the chest plate’s strap and guided your fingers beneath the magnetic release, squeezing it undone.</p><p>“I can take it off,” he said, bringing your hand to the other shoulder to repeat the motion, “but you can’t see my face.”</p><p>You inhaled, moving closer to him as the other connector unlatched, pulling the plate away from his body.</p><p>“So you <em> don’t </em> take the mask off,” you said quietly, placing the armor gingerly on the floor beside your glass. Paz bent down to abandon his own drink, much preferring to focus on the gentle pressure of you shifting to straddle his lap.</p><p>He shook his head and palmed the swell of your ass, relishing the little catch of breath you eked out when his fingers dug themselves into plump flesh. You wrapped your arms around the wall of his shoulders, dragging your fingers around and then up underneath the back of his cowl, running the blunt edges of your nails against his skin. He was feverishly hot under your touch.</p><p>You dipped your head into the crook of his neck, breathing warm, wet words into the fabric.</p><p>“Shame. I was looking forward to that sarcastic mouth of yours on me.”</p><p>Paz simultaneously felt like he’d been punched in the gut and lit on fire. His fingers gripped tighter against your hips, making you squirm against his codpiece.</p><p>“Fuck,” he groaned into a scoff. “Maybe if you ask nicely, I’ll give you what you want.”</p><p><em> That </em>made you smile, so wide and so enthusiastically that he felt it through the cowl. He left one wide paw over the curve of your ass, cupping it firmly, while the other anchored your chest against his. Suddenly, he lifted you up in one fluid motion, standing from the bed as your legs instinctively hooked themselves around his waist.</p><p>“Stars!” you squeaked, not expecting the abrupt shift.</p><p>Paz turned and laid you on the bed, scooting you into the middle as he hovered over you.</p><p>“Impressive,” you said, a little breathless at the effortless change in position - not to mention the absolute mass of him as he crowded over you, caging your body between his arms.</p><p>“Pretty,” he replied, drawing a hand down the line of your throat, longing to feel the warm thrum of your pulse beneath his fingers. As if you’d read his mind, your own hand came up to tangle into his thick fingers, pulling at the tips of his gloves. Paz slid his wrist back, letting the worn leather gently empty into your grasp.</p><p>When his bare hand came down to trace over the top of your collarbone, you felt yourself start to unfurl for him, arcing your chest up towards his touch. His hands were just as you’d imagined - rough and cracked at the knuckles, knotted with thick joints. And they were absolutely huge.</p><p>He removed his other glove and returned promptly to touching you, running one hand underneath the open top of your jumpsuit. Your breath deepened as he moved, inching closer to the swell of your breast. The softest sigh fluttered past your lips when you felt his rough fingertips make contact with your peaked nipple, relishing in the flicks and pinches he delivered. You clenched your thighs together, subtly rocking your hips back and forth between his body and the mattress, already so ready to have his hands roam <em> there. </em></p><p>“How much of you can I see?” you asked, sliding your hands up his biceps to gently knead and dig into the space beneath his pauldrons.</p><p>“As much as you want,” he hummed, bringing his index finger up from under your neckline to plink against the bottom edge of his helm. “Except what’s under this. No exceptions there.”</p><p>A slow, syrupy smile spread across your lips as you nodded in acknowledgment. If his hands were any indicator, well…</p><p>His fingers moved from the side of his head to the pull of your jumpsuit’s zipper, inching the metal down its toothed path to reveal more of your body.</p><p>His voice was a low rasp, “How much of you can I see?” He paused just barely as the question hung in the air.</p><p>You bit your lip over a windening grin. “As much as you want.”</p><p>A beat, and then your zipper was moving quick and intentional, drawing as far down as the clothing would allow. Paz slotted himself between your legs, spreading them wider to accommodate the breadth of him. You keened against him, pressing your core to the unyielding metal that covered his sex, whining as it pressed cold and hard against your clit.</p><p>“Any exceptions?” he asked, pushing aside the fabric covering your chest. You heard the hushed, quick intake of breath he pulled in upon seeing your breasts exposed, nipples drawn taut in the chilled breeze from the slatted window.</p><p>“No,” you affirmed, watching as he groped at you, rolling a pebbled pink bud between his thumb and forefinger. Fuck, he was so good at this, at riding the line between gentle and rough as he touched you, at letting you fall into the thrill of knowing he could snap you in half but he <em> wouldn’t. </em></p><p>“Good.”</p><p>Paz had already realized how difficult getting you out of this thing would be, logistically. He got a wicked idea.</p><p>“Take this off,” he tugged at the bunched material around your hips in emphasis, grinding you against his codpiece one more time before he backed away, “while I get out of my armor.”</p><p>“Don’t want any help?” you retorted, quirking a playful eyebrow. You pushed up onto your elbows and peered down at him as he came to stand at the foot of the bed, already missing the weight of him on top of you.</p><p>He chuckled as the helmet shook side to side, never letting his hidden gaze leave the spot where you laid on the bed - not needing to as he methodically began removing each piece of his beskar.</p><p>“Too many deadly buttons to risk that. Can’t have you accidentally stunning yourself before we have any fun.”</p><p>You hummed a naughty little laugh. “Can’t have that.”</p><p>Paz bent down to work at his leg armor. You were transfixed by the process, mind grappling with the size comparison you were making in your head.</p><p>“Take it off,” he ordered, snapping you back to attention. “I want you naked and touching yourself before I’m done.”</p><p>With a breathless chuckle, you wiggled your way out of the coveralls, shimmying your arms out of the sleeves and sliding it down your legs to be tossed beside the bed. Not oblivious to the way his movements slowed as you shucked off the material, you made a show of pulling your underwear down your hips, locking eyes onto the horizontal top of his T-shaped visor.</p><p>The thin cotton slipped down your thighs, traveling low enough to make it necessary to lift your legs up, hooking the fabric past the bend of your knees. Paz made a gravelly huff of noise as you slowly inched the undergarment down your calves and past your feet, tossing it in his direction as your legs returned to the mattress, spreading apart to show him what he wanted.</p><p>He was hurried now, tearing at utility belts and gauntlets and vambraces, hastily separating hook-and-loop closures at the edges of his protective abdominal padding. Your hand danced down to your slit, already glistening with moisture, and ran light strokes along the lips, teasing both of you.</p><p>You watched him work at his flightsuit, unzipping the vest and rolling it down to reveal a tight undertunic that clung to the sculpted breadth of his torso. His arms were stacked with dense muscle, covered in a thicket of dark hair. As you watched him peel the suit down his legs, your other hand caressed the underside of your left breast, pulling and squeezing at the weight of it, pinching the nipple just like Paz had.</p><p>“Fuck, you’re gorgeous,” you purred, swiping a stripe of wetness up from your opening to your nub, pressing firm and circling against it. Paz felt his ears burn at the praise, the way his chest drew tight at the sound of you quietly panting, the image of you spread open and flushed for him.</p><p>“Keep touching yourself,” he said with a low grunt. “Need you dripping for me.”</p><p>You cursed under your breath again, toying with your clit as he straightened back up, kicking his suit a few feet across the room. Heat pooled in your lower belly as you took in the sight of him in just his undergarments and bucket - how he seemed to overtake your entire field of vision with his mass, how the outlined bulge sitting heavy between his legs made you clench in anticipation.</p><p>Paz stood like that for a moment, watching you splayed out on top of your sheets, bottom lip turning fuschia pink between your teeth as you worked at your folds, your eyes dragging invisible heat across every contour of his body.</p><p>“What?” you smirked, feeling squirmish under his expressionless staring. You kicked a foot in his direction in a futile attempt to knock his hip forward, to get him into bed. Whipfast, he caught your ankle in his grasp and pinned it to the side, opening you up wider for him.</p><p>Fuck, the way you blushed from your cheeks to your chest was so impossibly sweet, how your flesh and blood betrayed the too-cool sex kitten confidence you put up. Paz ran the rough pads of his fingers up your leg, circling his palm around your thigh as he settled himself between your hips.</p><p>It shouldn’t have surprised him that you reached out to him, clawing at the material of his undertunic, using it as leverage to pull him closer to you. He let you do it, let himself gently fall forward to land softly on his forearms as he felt your breasts arch fervently up against his chest.</p><p>Stars, you were —</p><p>“So soft,” he murmured, running a sandpaper paw against the swell of one breast, running it down further and further to grip tight and urgent into the round plushness of your hip. The pressure of it, the unrelenting strength of how he held you there, panting and stock-still against the hardened curve of his covered cock made your head swim and your core pulse with want.</p><p>Your own hands had abandoned their work in his presence, instead mapping out every scar and vein that traversed his exposed arms, exploring your way up to the sturdy base of his neck. You pulled him even closer, parting your lips to brush against the heated skin as you pleaded.</p><p>“Touch me. Please,” you whispered, ending the words as you nipped and sucked at the juncture between his neck and collarbone.</p><p>Paz’s whole body shuddered, convulsing in on itself at the petal-soft dance of your mouth against him - a warrior who’d only allow himself these luxuries on rare occasions, who’d learned to savor them for their specialness and scarcity in his life, who could count the number of times he’d been called “gorgeous” on one hand. He tightly squeezed that far swell of your hip, undoubtedly bruising you based on the quiet mewl of protest you gave as you wiggled beneath him. He let up, massaging comforting circles against the muscle with his thumb.</p><p>“Sweet girl,” he muttered, the vocoder picking up the gravelly lust in his voice and amplifying it, “I’ll do anything you want.”</p><p>His hand dipped down to your center, running along the slick seam. The width of his two fingertips alone was enough to have you salivating, circling your hips against his hand to get him moving the way you wanted.</p><p>He teased your entrance, just barely slipping past the gentle resistance to coat his skin with your juices. Your quiet gasp cracked into a wanton moan as Paz drew up to your bud, swiping over it until you’d cry out before withdrawing back down to your pulsing hole. Over and over, he worked you up like that, nearly bringing you to a boil until you swore you’d burn alive, pushing you higher and hotter, then making you fall back down to a simmer.</p><p>Paz knew exactly what the fuck he was doing. Beneath the helmet, his lips switched between parted wonder and devilish smirks as he touched you, learning how much pressure you liked, exactly which strokes of his fingers sent your head lolling back, how you’d turn your face to your shoulder when you were really, <em> really </em>close.</p><p>How long had it been now? Only a few minutes? Time was already starting to melt together, amorphous and fluid. When your whines had tipped from keening and quiet to desperate and pleading, Paz knew you were ready to move on.</p><p>“Listen,” his gruff voice sounded.</p><p>You rolled your head back to center and sucked your lip into your mouth, squeezing back a shaky exhale. You watched his hand withdraw from the apex of your thighs, covered in slick and gleaming softly in the moonlight that filtered in from the window.</p><p>You didn’t quite trust yourself to make any sound other than a whimper, so you nodded your head to acknowledge him.</p><p>“I’m going to take care of you,” he said, before leaning back to slip his undertunic over his shoulders. He stretched the neck of the shirt wide to accommodate the pass of his helmet. “I want to make you cum as many times as this pretty pussy will let me.”</p><p>The stuttering exhale pushed its way past your chest, stumbling out of your mouth with a wavering mewl.</p><p>“Paz, gods—”</p><p>“How do you want to cum the first time?” he interrupted, lightly running his thumb over your sensitive clit. You jolted beneath him.</p><p>“<em>Oh, </em> fuck, I —” you stammered, breaking off into a gasping cry as he plunged a thick finger into your heat. “Stars, I’m fuck-ing— <em> shit</em>, you—”</p><p>“Like this?” he grunted, pumping his finger in and out of you with enough force to make your tits jump on impact. “Right on my fucking hand?”</p><p>Everything was bright and hot and intense, rising up piercingly strong in your abdomen. He fucked you faster with his finger, sliding another inside to stretch you wider for him, to feel the wet clench of you around his knuckles. When his upturned wrist <em> curled </em>and tapped on your front walls, you swore you went fucking blind on the spot.</p><p>“Like <em> that</em>,” you panted, curling yourself up tight to watch his soaked hand thrust into you, see how the muscles and veins of his forearm strained with the movement. “Like <em> that</em>, like that,” you blubbered. “Don’t stop.”</p><p>Paz’s free hand came down, spreading his fingers wide across the flat plane of your sternum to push you back against the bed. He pinned you there, thrilling at the feel of your galloping heartbeat beneath his open palm.</p><p>And, <em> there, </em>that was it - the steady push upwards of his hand to press against the base of your throat - that was the moment that sent blazing pleasure throttling fast and lightning-hot through your body as you came. Paz’s modulated baritone choked out a deep groan when he felt you clench around his fingers, vice-tight and slicker than sin.</p><p>“<em>There </em>we go, sweet girl… there we go,” he encouraged you through it, letting you hear the swagger in his voice.</p><p>He was going to fucking <em> ruin </em>you, in the best possible way.</p><p>If you didn’t start moving right that second, you knew you would’ve melted back into that relaxed, boneless, post-orgasmic haze, letting sleep overtake you.</p><p>So you sat straight up, pushing past the initial dizziness, and tore at Paz’s underwear. He came up to kneel on the bed, helping you maneuver them past the bend of his knees to be cast down off the end of the mattress.</p><p>His cock was thick and heavy, just like the rest of him, and bounced with its own weight. He gave it a few languid strokes as he repositioned it in front of your face, gripping the base as you ghosted your parted lips over the tip.</p><p>“Are you fucking kidding me?” you blinked up at him, kissing the seamed head, tasting the salt of his pre-cum.</p><p>Paz’s core flexed, pushing his cock just barely past your lips to see your pink tongue flick out to tease him. One of his huge hands tangled into the hair at the side of your head.</p><p>“About what?” he asked, the grit in his voice a little less direct, a little more impatient and needy.</p><p>You replaced his hand with yours at the base of his length.</p><p>“You <em> know </em> what,” you purred, running your flattened tongue against the underside of his head. “You’re huge,” you hummed, popping the flushed red head into your mouth.</p><p>Paz’s grip tightened on the side of your head, relenting slightly as you slid him back out to rest on your swollen bottom lip.</p><p>You blinked up at him through heavy lids, “I don’t know how you’ll fit.”</p><p>Fuck, Paz had to hold himself back to keep from ramming his cock straight into the end of your throat. <em> I don’t know how you’ll fit? </em>Stars above, he wasn’t sure either, but —</p><p>“That’s why I need you so wet,” he panted. “N-need you —”</p><p>He broke into a half-choked moan as you forcefully spit onto his shaft, spreading the slick saliva all over him with firm strokes.</p><p>“Need me what?” you murmured before taking him into your mouth again, sliding your lips and tongue down to meet your hand and bringing them both back with a tight little twist.</p><p>Gods, you knew exactly what you were doing, teasing him like this, matching his taunts and verbal filth like he knew you would. You hollowed your cheeks, pushing back down and sucking a ragged groan out of him.</p><p>“Need you fucking dripping for me,” he moaned, words spilling out of him like wine from a tipped bottle. “Want to f-feel it running down my cock.”</p><p>You hummed in satisfaction around him, pulling your head off his length with a lewd slurp.</p><p>“<em>Etyc,” </em> he gasped, with a firm downward tug on your hair. He felt you smiling as you wrapped your mouth around him again and started bobbing. “<em>Iba’ etyc dala.” </em></p><p>“What does that mean?” you asked, peering up with full, gorgeous eyes, immediately going back to working your tongue and lips as soon as the words were spoken. You didn’t let your gaze leave his visor, letting him watch you swallow and struggle around his shaft.</p><p>Paz pulled you back by the hair and his cock dropped heavily out of the wet warmth of your mouth. His thumb roughly wiped a string of spit clinging to your lower lip and chin.</p><p>“It <em> means </em>you’re a dirty fucking girl,” he growled, pinching your jaw. “And I love it. Lay back.”</p><p>A thrill ran wild up your spine, buzzing in your limbs like raw electricity.</p><p>Paz kneeled between your spread legs, rubbing his engorged tip against your soaking entrance. One of his huge hands came up and covered your eyes. His fingers smelled like sex and leather.</p><p>“Keep ‘em closed. For just a second,” he ordered.</p><p>You obeyed, squeezing your eyes shut beneath his hand. A second or two later, you felt something cold and wet hit your clit - his spit - followed by the lateral swipe of his thumb as he spread the slick all over you, collecting the excess and slathering his cock with it.</p><p>You whined and rolled your hips beneath him, catching him adjusting his helmet back over his head when his hand came off of your eyes.</p><p>“Tell me if I’m hurting you,” he said, his voice colored with shades of sincerity and care that caught you off guard.</p><p>Slowly, he sunk into your tight heat, groaning with the effort it took to not slam himself to the hilt. Fuck, he wished he had some sort of recording device in the helmet, some way to log how your chest stuttered with breathy moans as he broke you open.</p><p>The stretch was unbelievable, filling you in a way you’d never felt with any other lover. Beyond the absolute mass of him, you were enraptured by the way his attention never left you, how he watched and listened so intently for any sign of discomfort or resistance.</p><p>“Y-you’re taking me so well,” he whispered, almost reverently as you looked down to see the juncture of your sexes, how you had parted around him. He pulled back a few inches, dragging a wrecked, eager groan out of you. His shaft was glistening with your cum.</p><p>Your eyes snapped back up to his visor, finding it still trained on you. In an instant, you felt the strong forward surge of his hips as he drove back into you, punching a moan out of your lungs.</p><p>“Yeah?” he whispered, drawing his hand up your torso to play idly with your tits as you fully adjusted to his size.</p><p>“<em>Yes</em>,” you breathlessly nodded. “Fuck, you feel - s-so fuckingggg—”</p><p>He began rocking his hips into you, bouncing your body against him in time with his shallow thrusts.</p><p>“Maker,” you groaned, clawing at his corded forearms for purchase.</p><p>The head of his dick was grinding up against white-hot heavens inside of you, carrying you steadily towards your next orgasm.</p><p>“Fuck, baby,” he grunted, “I can feel you. You gonna cum again already?”</p><p>His thumb moved down to your clit, lightly tracing perfect little circles around it. You felt yourself bear down on him even harder.</p><p>“Yes,” you groaned, wrapping your thighs around the muscled sides of his hips, tilting your hips up to take him deeper.</p><p>“Say my fucking name,” he growled, clenching his teeth as he dragged his cock through your tightening channel, driving farther into your depths as you grew wetter and wetter.</p><p>With two more swipes of his thumb, you were done for - gasping his name, rhythmically pulsing around his hot length, feeling a rush of your slick soak his skin. He fucked you through it, encouraging you on as your neck arched back against the mattress, baring it to him.</p><p>Before you could decipher up from down, everything spiraled and shifted. Paz grabbed you by the ankles, twisting you onto your stomach.</p><p>“This <em> perfect </em>ass,” he said, grinning wide and smug beneath the helmet, massaging your cheeks with his massive hands.</p><p>He felt your low, tumbling chuckle reverberate through the bed. You turned your head to the side to peek at him over your shoulder.</p><p>“You <em> definitely </em>won’t fit there,” you smirked back at him, flushed and glowy from your second orgasm.</p><p>Paz huffed a laugh and shook his head, spreading your cheeks apart to run his thumb over the tight ring of muscle. You arched your back, giving him more of you.</p><p>“Mmmm,” he hummed, circling the hole slowly, thoughtfully. He dipped his touch down to your pussy, collecting seeping slick onto the pad of his thickest finger and drawing it back up to your asshole.</p><p>“Nope,” he shook his head, applying light pressure against the tight resistance. You bucked beneath him, whimpering as he just barely pushed past the entrance. “But it seems like you take my thumb just fine.”</p><p>You gasped as he slid in a bit more, stilling there for a moment while you writhed, grinding your clit against the sheets for more friction.</p><p>He chuckled lowly again and removed the digit.</p><p>“You like it… I’ll remember that,” he nodded, guiding your hips up to line your fluttering core up with the head of his cock.</p><p>“You promise?” you smirked over your shoulder, shaking your ass back onto his erection.</p><p>He pushed back into you, warping the crooked smile on your face into a silent, depraved o-shape.</p><p>“Yeah.”</p><p>He slammed into you, wasting no time and dealing no pleasantries at this angle. You were wet enough to take it, boneless and unfurled enough to let him sink into the root and pound you hard and deep. His hands returned to your asscheeks, playing with them and watching them bounce and ripple from his thrusts.</p><p>“G-<em> gods</em>,” you choked out, barely loud enough to be heard over the deafening squelch of your pussy pulling him back in or the slap of his balls against your clit.</p><p>Paz grunted behind you, spreading your ass apart to watch himself disappear into your stretched hole. He moaned as you pushed yourself back into him, meeting his thrusts halfway.</p><p>“So good,” he muttered, digging into the flesh. “My good fucking girl.”</p><p>You preened at the praise, lowering your torso flat onto the bed to give him more of you, to feel him spear deeper. His hands moved, one of them pressing down on your lower back, and the other dipping between your cheeks.</p><p>His thumb teased your ass again, pressing more fervently this time, slipping in easily after he’d already breached your tight entrance. He slid in to the knuckle, making you feel so impossibly full with just the smallest intrusion.</p><p>“Mmmm <em> yeah</em>,” you groaned, giving his cock an appreciative squeeze. He sputtered behind you at the sensation.</p><p>“You’re so goddamn sexy,” he murmured, still drilling into you with a warrior’s fervor. He fucked you deeper and deeper into the mattress, his snapping hips driving your body down to nearly flatten underneath him.</p><p>It was dizzying, being so completely overtaken by him. The coil in your belly tightened sweetly.</p><p>“Stay right here,” he said, slipping from both of your holes as you whimpered at the sudden loss. The mattress dipped and curved to your side as he leaned off the edge of the bed, grabbing his discarded undertunic.</p><p>The sound of ripping fabric startled you. Twisting your neck, you saw Paz tearing a strip of his soft shirt, bringing it over your head.</p><p>“Paz—”</p><p>“Is this okay?” he paused.</p><p>You nodded, feeling another rush of fluid between your thighs at the thought of him destroying something of his own just to taste you, of taking the helmet off for something so—<em> gods, </em>something that seemed so small compared to his Creed. With a steady, firm hand, he pulled the fabric across your eyes, tying it securely at the back of your head.</p><p>“Don’t take it off.”</p><p>You nodded again, heart racing as you heard the soft thud of his helmet being placed on the floor. Was this normal for him? You were reeling.</p><p>The first thing he did - what he’d been daydreaming about since he first laid eyes on you - was bury his face in your hair. His lungs ballooned in his chest, expanding as he breathed you in, drowning himself in it.</p><p>Maker, what <em> was </em>it that made you smell so good? Your soap, or just you? Was it some iteration of the same scent he’d detected when he first stepped into this apartment - the one that reminded him of fragrant, dried herbs and exotic oils? He took another whiff, inhaling you like the purest spice in the galaxy, before trailing his lips down the valley of your spine.</p><p>His hands lifted your hips up off the mattress, opening you up to him to taste. His tongue was soft and silken between your folds, a gorgeous contrast to the hardened edges of his body. He let it flutter at your entrance, teasing you and imparting even more wetness between your thighs. When he explored further to trace circles around your clit, he couldn’t stop the groan he made to match your desperate cry.</p><p>You were seeing stars beneath the makeshift blindfold, certain that Paz was trying to break you down into an exhausted, slick-covered mess before he was done. Your hands twisted at the sheets ahead of you as if they were the only thing keeping you from floating up into the smoggy sky.</p><p>Faintly, just below the sounds of him lapping at you, you could hear a steady thumping of flesh on flesh. Your eyes fluttered shut at the realization - he was touching himself as he did this, thrusting into his calloused hand as if he couldn’t fucking <em> help </em>it.</p><p>You pussy started grinding back onto his face at the thought, conjuring the image of him buried in you from behind, stroking his cock.</p><p>“Mm’gunna —”</p><p>He hummed into you and oh <em> fuck </em>that was all it took, that subtle vibration of his raw, unfiltered voice rumbling into your cunt to make you fall apart again, smearing your release across his face with your rolling hips. He pressed himself harder against you, feeling you spasm against his mouth. He swore quietly through your aftershocks, gently sucking at the outside of your folds.</p><p>Paz was grinning like mad on the inside, giddy at the thought of having made you cum three times already, of the unbelievable luck he’d had meeting you on this unplanned pit stop between destinations.</p><p>When you squirmed away and blindly fumbled backwards to try and find him, he couldn’t help but let the grin show through. You managed to have one ambling hand land squarely on his shoulder, while the other nearly gouged his eye out.</p><p>“Woah,” he chuckled, snatching your wrist and bringing it to his other shoulder. He saw the small intake of breath you made, the way your brows scrunched you beneath the fabric as you let your touch wander from his shoulders to his neck, feeling the trimmed beard he kept neat and tidy beneath his helmet, ambling further up his jawline to graze over his ears. When you felt his left one - the one that was permanently in a state of slight swollenness from previous injury - you did something no other woman had done with Paz.</p><p>You leaned in and kissed it.</p><p>It was so chaste, so incredibly pure and sweet, especially in comparison to the absolute filth you’d both been spewing to each other all evening. Paz’s ears turned beet red at the gesture. His arms circled around you, pulling you into his lap. You could feel his heart beating, how his chest swelled and flattened with his controlled breath.</p><p>“Let me guess,” you whispered, trailing feather-light kisses along his cheek, stopping to hover over his lips. Fuck, you could smell him now - <em> him, </em> not his body or his armor polish, but the scent of who he was, how life-giving air would transform like alchemy in his lungs to become <em> him, </em>new and different from the environment.</p><p>He made a low, enquiring sound.</p><p>Your lips grazed his as you opened them to finish your sentence. Paz caught a tiny flash of your smile.</p><p>“‘<em>You should see the other guy’</em>?” you teased, smile cracking bright and wide over Paz’s own silly grin.</p><p>He laughed into your kiss, bumping teeth and clumsily tackling you back down to lay on the bed, moving his lips in time with yours as he rolled on top of you.</p><p>His hips hitched when your long fingers scratched up into his hairline, melting into the rare touch and nuzzling your neck. His own fingers came up to pinch and twist at your nipples, soothing the swollen mounds of your breasts with his tongue.</p><p>He was trying to find the words to say how incredible you were, how fucking charming he found you, how perfect your body felt - better than in his dream last night. All the blood in his brain was preoccupied and taking up residence between his legs.</p><p>You hooked a calf behind his ass, dragging him back up your body, peppering more slow, open-mouthed kisses along the top of his chest. His sweat was warm and salty on your palette.</p><p>“Fuck me again...” you pleaded, voice like rich honey as you suckled up his neck, back towards his lips. “Please,” you sighed into his mouth.</p><p>Paz made a strangled noise, somewhere between pained groan and helpless whimper. He was convinced of it then - you absolutely were going to kill him.</p><p>He tilted his hips to position himself just right, and pushed in slowly as you kissed, filling you inch by inch. He was less frantic this time, less hurried and animalistic, instead opting to savor every soft tremble of your walls against his leaking cock.</p><p>He leaned back, watching himself slide in and out of your heat, framed between your gorgeous thighs. He gave them a hard squeeze, making you mewl and contract around him in response. His thrusts became more urgent. The sound of your hips smacking together, the bed creaking beneath him, it all spurred him closer into blinding madness.</p><p>“D-do you - <em> fuck </em> - d’you think you can cum one more time?”</p><p>You hand shot down to your clit, rubbing wide circles with three fingers. You nodded fast, sucking your lip into your mouth.</p><p>Paz groaned appreciatively. “Good girl.”</p><p>He repositioned your legs with a sure grip, pushing them out and up towards your head, using them as a counterweight to drive deeper and faster. He felt boiling-hot pressure build low in his abdomen, felt his sack start to tighten.</p><p>He wasn’t going to last much longer. But he had one more goal.</p><p>“I’m close,” he choked out. “Tell me what you need.”</p><p>You whined and licked your hand before answering, dragging the wet skin back down to circle your abused nub.</p><p>“Choke me,” you said, launching the words from your lips, feeling his cock jump as you rolled your head back, exposing your warm neck to his hands.</p><p>Paz hummed and stretched his arm up to grip the side of your neck, slipping his thumb across the front and lightly squeezing.</p><p>“<em>Dirty,” </em>he grunted as he watched you writhe. Your face flushed red, twisted up into a wordless scream.</p><p>He felt himself tearing at the seams, throttling closer to the edge, hurled forward by the squelching sounds of you gripping his thick length.</p><p>Paz trailed his thumb up to your mouth, dipping the tip past your bottom lip. A massive <em> whoosh </em>of air released from your chest as you convulsed around him, drawing his thumb into your mouth and moaning around it as you came again, so fucking wrung out and drained dry from it that you barely registered him pulling out.</p><p>He furiously fisted his cock over your stomach, painting your supple skin with warm, slick rivulets of his cum that streaked your entire torso. He was panting, gasping for air, matching your labored breaths as if you’d both just gotten your heads above water.</p><p>He collapsed down next to you and crumbled into a cathartic sigh<em> . </em>It poured out of him like the breeze through the window, starting slow and gentle and crescendoing into deep, diaphragm rumbling, contented groan. You giggled in response - not totally sure what was so fucking funny, but happy to hear him happy.</p><p>A loud crack of lightning drew your attention to the window.</p><p>When had that storm outside even <em> started? </em>The curtains billowed and strained against the window frame like trapped ghosts.</p><p>“It’s raining?” you asked, chest still heaving up and down with laughter and post-orgasmic exhaustion.</p><p>Paz playfully slapped the side of your leg as he clambered off the bed, a little uneasy on his feet as the world returned to him. He first scooped his bucket back over his head before padding over to the window to close the metal shutters.</p><p>“Looks like it,” he said, back to his modified voice. You slipped the ripped tunic off your eyes, watching from the bed as he carefully closed each window. His spend was pooled in the valley of your stomach, threatening to roll down your sides into the sheets.</p><p>“Stay right there,” he said, raising a big hand in emphasis.</p><p>He disappeared into the refresher, returning with a small, damp towel. He kicked one leg over your knees and straddled you, wiping thoughtfully at his mess. You admired his half-hard cock, sheened with moisture and slowly softening between his muscled thighs.</p><p>“I can’t let you go outside in that,” you nodded towards the storm raging outside. Lightning streaked blue through the slatted covers.</p><p>Paz got back up, discarding the towel in the kitchen sink and pivoting towards your storage cabinets. He paused, trying to remember which one you’d pulled glasses out of earlier for the rice wine.</p><p>“I will if you want me to,” he said nonchalantly. “Which one—”</p><p>“You’re staying,” you said decisively, and maybe a little hopefully, as you clamored up off the bed. You joined Paz in the tiny kitchen and opened the cabinet right in front of him - <em> ah, </em>he was so close - grabbing two water glasses. Paz took both from your hands and filled them from the sink.</p><p>A warmth was spreading through him, steady and radiant. He shut the water off and spent longer than he’d like to admit just… staring at you, before he moved back to the end of the bed to retrieve the straw you’d lent him.</p><p>You shuffled through some items on your countertop, finding the control box for your holoscreen and turning it on.</p><p>“Do you like holodocumentaries?” you asked, tossing the remote on the floor beside the bed as you bent down to fluff and rearrange the twisted sheets.</p><p>The screen flickered on, picking up where you’d left off on a series about Naboo. The narrator spoke in a prim Core accent over aerial footage of a waterfall. Paz wondered briefly if you enjoyed travel.</p><p>“Sure,” he shrugged, climbing back into the straightened sheets with you. If he was being honest, he didn’t really watch any holo anything, ever. But he was content to lay back with you, to let the deep relaxation he felt wash over him, to pull you close against his side and feel your breath wash over his chest. His fingers curled over your shoulder and drew lazy patterns along the skin.</p><p>He thought about how long he might be here, on this planet, and if you’d like to do this again. He thought about feigning sleep as an excuse to stay until dawn, how he’d groggily roll on top of you as you both stirred awake, how you’d both lazily fuck your way into the brilliant daylight.</p><p>His head turned to you when he heard your quiet snoring. Slow, like the sun rising over the horizon, a warm smile spread across his face.</p><p>He decided he liked this. A lot.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Not Enough</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Paz jerked awake, unaware that he had even drifted off. Dim, purple light filtered through the tiny cracks in the slatted windows. The streets outside were still and quiet, peaceful during this predawn hour.</p><p>A crackled, airy sigh blew past your parted lips at his movement. Paz turned towards you, seeing your leg slung over his, your head wedged up between his arm and torso.</p><p>Fuck, you looked so pretty like this, all spread out and pliant, lower back arched invitingly. He couldn’t resist the urge to scoop you up, so he hooked his hand around the back of your knee and slid your warm body on top of his.</p><p>You made a confused little noise, one that quickly melted down into a blissful hum as you settled onto his wide chest.</p><p>“Comfy,” you muttered against his skin, placing a lazy, open-mouthed kiss onto the skin that laid beneath your lips.</p><p>Paz’s morning erection was pressed up between you, sitting thick between your lower bellies. You felt it twitch as he ran feather-soft touches up and down your back, skimming the pads of his fingers down your ribs and the dip of your waist.</p><p>The two of you stayed like that for a while, sprawled out and floating in that hazy space between sleep and waking.</p><p>You aren’t entirely sure when you started subtly rocking your hips against his, or at what point his patient touches became needier, traveling down to the swell of your ass, clutching and gently squeezing the back of your neck. He liked this feeling, of holding you so tightly to his chest, of your shallow breaths becoming stunted and keening, of your hands roaming across his scarred arms and tight shoulders. His touch dipped down below your cheeks, pressing between them to feel how incredibly wet you already were. He rubbed along your entrance, teasing you by just barely slipping his fingers inside.</p><p>Paz couldn’t help the long, soft moan he let out when you finally lifted yourself up to sink onto him, enveloping him in your slick heat.</p><p>You circled your hips on top of him, pushing your hair behind your shoulders to give him free reign over your breasts. He lightly kneaded them, brushing his thumbs over the nipples as you languidly rolled and bounced on him, leaning back to balance your hands on his thighs. Your body was gently stretched back and on display, open and ready, gorgeous in the pale lavender light.</p><p>He pulled you forward to press against him, cradling the base of your head to nuzzle into his neck. Paz lifted his knees, using the leverage to thrust up into you.</p><p>Gods, with you this close to him, he could hear your breathy moans pass up underneath the bottom of his helm, bypassing the audio processor. It was unfiltered, natural, real you. He <em> had </em> to make you cum this way, had to hear the sounds you made as they vibrated up the bones of his neck, so fucking close to his ear that he swore he could feel the ghost of your lips against it.</p><p>He picked up his pace, grinding up into you, pressing your lower back down to get your clit against his pubic bone.</p><p>“Cum for me, pretty girl,” he husked in your ear. “Let me hear you.”</p><p>Your hand clamped down against the side of his helmet, pressing it fervently to your forehead as you shook apart on top of him, drenching his cock in a rush of wetness as you came. The sounds you made - thundering gods, he couldn’t get enough, didn’t think he’d ever find a high as good as hearing you cry out against his neck, clinging to him so hard that you trembled with the effort.</p><p>You were panting, flushed pink and so fucking beautiful. He rolled on top of you, knocked your knees wide, and continued driving into you, drawing light patterns on your spread thighs with his fingers. He saw the waves of goosebumps that cascaded down the skin, pricking your flesh taut in his wake.</p><p>He didn’t often allow himself to do things like this - to stay the night, to wake up and begin his day between a beautiful woman’s legs. This was special, though he couldn’t make out exactly why just yet. It was… nice, in a way he was uncharacteristically comfortable with, in a way that didn’t demand any logical explanation.</p><p>Your hands were getting grabby, pulling his shoulders down closer to you. Your delicate fingers splayed across either side of his neck, holding his gaze on you as you locked eyes with the darkened visor.</p><p>Maker, he could really get used to this - to being looked at like this. His fingers found your clit, circling around it as he felt you squeeze him tighter.</p><p>“You feel so good,” you murmured, turning your head to the side. Already, Paz knew this little sign, the way you’d look away before you came.</p><p>“Hey,” he whispered, gently tipping your chin back to center. “Look at me.”</p><p>You swallowed lightly and chewed on your bottom lip. Paz brushed his thumb over it, stifling down a small moan as your tongue flitted out to taste the skin. His thrusts deepened.</p><p>“You’re gonna make me cum again,” you whispered, brows furrowing and cunt constricting around him. Paz ground up into you, spearing into that spot that made you feel like your hipbones were burning coals.</p><p>Paz quickened his pace, holding back his own release as he felt you teetering back towards the edge. He cradled the side of your head, holding it still for the sweeping high, but then —</p><p>The com panel near your door buzzed, loud and rattling and angry. Over and over.</p><p>Paz slowed and shallowed his thrusts, watching your reaction to the interruption. With a heavy sigh, you set your hands over the tops of his shoulders to settle him.</p><p>“Need to get that?” he gruffed.</p><p>Your eyelids squeezed shut as the speaker fuzzed to life with a sing-songy, sassy male voice that called your name. Paz looked towards it and felt your head nod against his palm.</p><p>He slid from you with a shared hiss, and you padded over to the metal panel to press the response button.</p><p>“Rome, it’s eight in the kriffing morning,” you grumbled, resting your head against the wall. “What do you want?”</p><p>“Buzz me in! I’m headed to —” the speaker broke up, cutting in and out erratically until you smacked it back into shape, “— pick up early. <em> Pleeeeeease</em>?”</p><p>“Fine,” you groaned dismissively, slamming down the button to unlock the front gate. Paz could hear it rattle from outside your window.</p><p>He moved to get up, to start dressing himself before your unannounced guest barged into the room. You stopped him before he climbed out of bed, gently pushing him back to lay against the pillows.</p><p>“No,” you said softly, “I won’t let him in… just — I don’t know, cover your —” you gestured wildly towards his crotch, his thick length still standing at attention. You slipped into the refresher, emerging a second later and pulling on a knee-length silk robe that you tied around your waist.</p><p>Paz laid back, pulling the sheets up to ride low across his hips, and watched as you stepped into the kitchen. You dug through a low cabinet, popping back up into his view with a small, vacuum-sealed plastoid pouch in your hands.</p><p>Oh. <em> Oh</em>. This was an interesting development, and explained the smell in here - that heady blend of dried flowers and herbs.</p><p>A staccato blast of knocks rang out against the door. You slid it open a few inches, letting your visitor only see a sliver of you in your nightclothes, and passed the satchel to him wordlessly.</p><p>“So lovely of you to dress up for me,” he deadpanned with a sly grin.</p><p>“It’s way too early,” you griped, crossing your arms and leaning against the door frame. “You’re lucky I like you.”</p><p>“Uh huh…” he eyed you up and down with a judgemental, arched eyebrow and clicked his tongue. “You coming tonight?”</p><p>You gave him a severe eye-roll and stretched out your palm for payment. He dropped a neat stack of credits into your hand.</p><p>“<em>Fuck </em>no,” you yawned. “Two nights in one week is my limit.”</p><p>His eyes flitted back into your apartment, seeing Paz’s pile of blue beskar armor and boots.</p><p>“Uh huh…” the visitor replied, even slower, a mischievous glint flashing across his bespectacled eyes. “Wouldn’t have anything to do with—”</p><p>“Okay, bye!” you shoved him out of the doorway, sliding it in his face.</p><p>“Rude!” he shouted from the hallway. “Com me later! Unless your mouth is a little preoccu—”</p><p>“Goodbye!” you shouted back as you returned to the kitchen, powering on your caf machine.</p><p>Paz chuckled under his breath from the bed.</p><p>“Interesting friend,” he said.</p><p>You smiled softly, shaking your head with a warm fondness while you tinkered with the machine’s controls.</p><p>“That’s Roman,” you sighed. “He’s an asshole, but… we’ve been friends for a long time. He made that dress I wore to the gala.”</p><p>Paz hummed. That dress - he remembered it well.</p><p>“Spice, huh? Thought you were an artist.”</p><p>Your caf maker bubbled and beeped, steaming as you poured yourself a cup.</p><p>“I am,” you pressed your lips together. “Art just doesn’t pay all the bills. You want some?”</p><p>“I don’t really smoke, but—”</p><p>“I meant caf,” you winked, blowing steam off the top of your ceramic cup.</p><p>Paz smiled under the helmet. “I’m okay. But thank you.”</p><p>You came back towards him, perching yourself on the mattress’ ledge. He untied your robe and pushed it off your shoulders, admiring the soft blush that crept across your cheeks.</p><p>“What are you doing today?” he asked, unaware the words were even coming out of him until it was too late. He chewed on his lip and drew light touches up your bare side. He wanted to spend more time with you, to give himself any excuse at all to be around you for just a little bit longer, but cringed internally at being so forward.</p><p>“Rome wants me to go to another party with him tonight,” you shrugged. “But… I’m really not interested. It’s always the same people and the same conversations, over and over again. The art crowd here is…” you let your eyes unfocus towards the floor and shook your head with a tiny shiver.</p><p>“They wouldn’t happen to need a door man or security or anything like that, would they?”</p><p>You smirked at him and took another sip of your drink.</p><p>“Maybe. Looking for work?”</p><p>He nodded, thankful that he could at least give a pragmatic reason for wanting to accompany you.</p><p>“My ship’s being held at a repair shop about a click away. So, yeah…” he looked away bashfully. “Yeah, I’ll take whatever I can get.”</p><p>You set your cup down and moved to straddle him, letting the parted sides of your robe fall all the way down to pool around the bends of your elbows. Paz settled his hands wide across your hips.</p><p>“I’ll tell you what,” you purred. “I know the organizers; I’ll ask if they have anything for you. If they do, we go together. You get paid, I get the benefit of interesting company, and then maybe you can walk me home again.”</p><p>Paz hummed, low and appreciative, loving the devilish little sparkle behind your eyes.</p><p>“And what if they <em> don’t </em>have anything for me?”</p><p>You leaned down and kissed the side of his neck, whispering against the skin, “Then we don’t have to leave this bed at all.”</p><p>He huffed and rolled on top of you, wrestling your arms over your head. He held both your wrists in one of his large hands.</p><p>“Maybe I don’t want you to contact them after all…” he half-joked, drawing his free hand down your sternum.</p><p>You wiggled beneath him, playfully twisting under his weight.</p><p>“Up!” you laughed, flexing out of his loosened grip. “To the ‘fresher with you!”</p><p>“Only if you join me,” he jabbed, sliding down and pulling you by the ankles to the end of the bed, tossing you over his shoulder.</p><p>You squealed and slapped his back.</p><p>“I would’ve gone willingly!” you giggled.</p><p>Paz laughed. He liked this. He liked you.</p><p>———</p><p>It was maddening, in a sense, having to watch you from afar like this. You knew what you were doing, purposefully teasing him from a distance. Gods, he swore he could still feel your lips around him, the soft suction and wet warmth that enveloped him while you were on your knees in the shower.</p><p>“<em>When you see me run a finger along the rim of my glass, that means I’m thinking of you</em>,” you’d winked at him before he left your apartment.</p><p>Paz was stationed near the back of the room, told to keep an eye on the catering staff’s activity in the liquor closet. The event host had experienced some ongoing issues with employees’ sticky fingers. He’d lost some expensive bottles over the past few months and didn’t have enough intel to pin it on any one individual.</p><p>So Paz, once again, literally just <em> stood </em> there, looking intimidating without even trying. The host was confident nobody would attempt any funny business while being watched by that terrifyingly blank helm, and he was right. The slow trickle of staff skittered into storage with their heads ducked low, avoiding eye contact as much as possible.</p><p>It was beyond easy, and impossibly boring.</p><p>And you looked so fucking good.</p><p>The room was pleasantly dim, enough to add an air of sensuality to the scene. Guests mingled around tall tables, sipping fancy beverages and gossiping. Roman was with you, currently talking the ear off of a lithe green Twi’lek dressed in a blue velvet suit. You weren’t engaged in the conversation, only nodding along enough to seem passably interested.</p><p>Every few seconds, your eyes would flicker over to Paz. That mix of uncertainty and mystery - of not knowing where his own eyes were in the room - was more intoxicating than anything in the closet they propped him in front of. You plucked a ripe, red fruit off your drink’s garnish pick and ate it, discarding the pick onto the table to slowly run two fingers along the edge of the glass.</p><p>Imperceptibly, just barely, you saw him nod in your direction. You bit your lip over a girlish grin.</p><p>All night long, you found little opportunities to show off for him - crossing your legs while perched on the edge of the banquette, letting the hem of your dress ride up your thigh; lifting your hair up off of your neck, giving him a glimpse of the marks he’d left down the side; leaning against the bar top to order another round and pushing your ass out <em> just </em>so.</p><p>When Roman had imbibed enough to not care where you were, you slipped away from his small posse and leaned against the wall beside Paz.</p><p>“You look positively riveted,” you said, stroking the rim of your glass as you looked out over the crowd.</p><p>Paz huffed a curt laugh, “I think I’ve managed to terrify the entire staff just by existing.”</p><p>“I’m jealous. Getting to stand here and watch instead of participate? You’re living the dream.”</p><p>He leaned down, bringing his vocal output close to your ear.</p><p>“You gonna keep teasing me all night?” he whispered.</p><p>A sly smile melted its way across your cheeks.</p><p>“Absolutely.”</p><p>“Hmm,” he skimmed his gloved fingertips down the back of your arm. “I don’t know if I can allow that.”</p><p>“Yeah?” you asked, the word coming out a little breathier than you’d expected. “What’re you gonna do about it?”</p><p>Paz hummed, a deep rumble in his chest that seemed to vibrate straight to your core.</p><p>“I could take you into this closet. Pull those pretty little panties to the side —”</p><p>“I’m not wearing any,” you interrupted, pushing off the wall to face him.</p><p>You could see him just barely shiver, how his muscles seemed to short circuit for a flash beneath his heavy armor.</p><p>“Threatening to kill me like this won’t end well for you,” he joked, shaking his head down at you.</p><p>You smirked, shooting him a filthy, gorgeous, <em> perfect </em>look up through your lashes, one that turned his bones into a gelatinous mess.</p><p>“One more hour,” you winked, backing away to get swallowed up again by the crowd. “Then you can punish me however you see fit.”</p><p>———</p><p>A pocketful of credits and a shift drink hastily slammed in one large gulp later, Paz was making his way towards the back door of the venue to find you. Before the party ended, he’d placed his hand firmly against your lower back, dipping his helm down to tell you to wait for him in the alley.</p><p>You were leaned up against the cool stone wall, the chilled dampness of the late night air pleasantly clinging to the backs of your shoulders. Rome and the rest of the group had pleaded with you to keep the party going at some trustafarian’s brand new penthouse - something about a transparisteel-bottomed rooftop pool and a game of strip sabacc, which you politely declined. Rome gave your hand a knowing squeeze before he slipped into the back of a packed land speeder, sloshing some of his drink onto the ground as he clamored over the tops of his friends’ laps.</p><p><em> “Go have fun. I don’t think Big Blue would be a fan of group nudity,” </em> he’d kidded. <em> “I saw the way you were looking at him.” </em></p><p>Gods. You fought down the blush, pressed yourself harder against the cold wall to quell the heat that rippled down from your cheeks to your chest.</p><p>The alley door creaked open, revealing Paz back in his full Mandalorian regalia - jet pack and all.</p><p>“Come to exact your revenge?” you smiled playfully.</p><p>He walked towards you wordlessly, a swagger in his step that both terrified and thrilled you. The building tension glowed pulsing and warm in your lower belly.</p><p>Paz watched you, saw how your eyes went from teasing and light to blown wide, riding the clashing waves where hopeless panic met keening surrender.</p><p>And he didn’t stop walking. His pace was steady, sure-footed, carried him so close to you that he took over your entire field of vision. Somehow - impossibly, it seemed - he was even fucking <em> larger </em>with his pack strapped across his back. You swallowed nervously just before his body made impact, breath catching in your throat at the gentle crush of his hips against your hips, the firm squeeze of his hands around your waist.</p><p>“I ought to put you in binders for torturing me all night in this dress,” he whispered, digging his fingers deeper into your sides.</p><p>“Don’t get carried away,” you countered. “We have a train ride ahead of us.”</p><p>Paz’s head fell against the crook of your neck. A blast of static passed through the vocoder as his chest heaved inwards.</p><p>“Fuck that,” he huffed. “Hire a speeder. I just got paid.”</p><p>He knew this was extravagant. He knew the paltry credit or two it would’ve cost to take the subway was the smart, economical choice. But you looked like <em> that, </em>and you were bare beneath that clinging fabric, and fuck—he couldn’t keep his hands off of you for one more Maker-be-damned second. The train took too long. Plus, he had another filthy idea.</p><p>“You need the credits more than we need the ride,” you huffed back, fruitlessly trying to wiggle your way off of the wall and out of his grasp.</p><p>“I need <em> you</em>,” he argued, curling his fingers tighter around your midsection. “Speeder. Please.”</p><p>“Fine, high roller,” you relented, swatting the flat plane of his cuirass. “Let’s go.”</p><p>You stepped out to the curb, raising your hand up to hail your ride. A wide green-and-black vessel slowed to a smooth stop in front of you, and its side door swung up to reveal the interior. You slid in ahead of Paz, scooting down the soft leather of the rear bench. The nav droid spun its cylindrical head back and released a stream of prim, polite beeps.</p><p>“G17 District. Corner of Era Street and Block 10.”</p><p>Paz unclipped his jet pack and entered behind you, dipping the side of the speeder downwards under his movement. He placed a firm hand over the divider between the driver and passenger cabins.</p><p>“Close the partition and I’ll pay double,” he said, the cockiness oozing out of his modulator. Your lips twisted up into a wicked smirk.</p><p>With an obedient trill, the droid spun forward, disappearing from view behind the raising pane of durasteel.</p><p>Paz was on you instantly, hands moving with a warrior’s quickness to hold you. He gripped your hips and pulled you onto his lap, letting the hem of your dress bunch around the tops of your thighs. You could feel how wet you were when he had you spread out like this, how the cool air of the speeder called your attention to the slickness that clung to your sensitive skin.</p><p>He spread his knees wide, pressing them against the wall of the speeder, and moved his palm to the center of your chest. Steadily, he tipped you backwards until your shoulders made contact with the divider. Your lower back buckled, giving him a perfect view between your legs.</p><p>“Shit,” he murmured, his helm dipping down to your core. You flushed a deep crimson. “Do you have any fucking idea what you do to me?”</p><p>He drew his thumb inward to your core, tracing firm stripes up and down the soaked seam. You bucked under the attention, feeling sparks of raw electricity shooting up your limbs the closer he got to your clit.</p><p>“Swear I’m going half-mad with the way you make me feel,” he gruffed, slipping down to your opening to swipe up the pooling wetness, bring it back to your bundle of nerves. Back and forth he went, smearing you until you were sheened and glistening.</p><p>“Please,” you whispered, biting your lip to tame the wavering mewls that threatened to spill past your teeth. “Paz, <em> please</em>.”</p><p>“Tell me what you need.”</p><p>You quieted yourself, not wanting to make him uncomfortable with your request, because <em> Maker… </em> all you wanted to do was kiss him. But you were in the back of a speeder, only a few minutes from home, where you could do that as much as you wanted as long as the blindfold stayed on.</p><p>Paz’s thumb stopped stroking your folds once he noticed your hesitation.</p><p>“Pretty girl,” he hummed, gently caressing the crease of your hip. “What’s wrong?”</p><p>And you shouldn’t have said it, shouldn’t have put such a ridiculous request on the table, but—</p><p>“I want to kiss you,” you pleaded shyly, brows folded together, eyes shining as they darted nervously around the contours of his visor.</p><p>Fuck, he — gods. He paused, weighing odds and options in his mind before abandoning all hesitations. He pulled you from his lap and laid you down along the length of the backseat, relishing the small squeak of surprise you made. He pivoted, hovering over you with his forearm braced against the door and dipped his head below the frame of the speeder window.</p><p>“Close your eyes,” he said softly, watching as you squeezed them shut tightly. To be sure - because fuck, this was <em> stupid </em> and <em> irresponsible </em>and yet completely and totally what he wanted, too - he pressed his palm over your sealed lids, holding them closed as he lifted the helmet from his head. He held it safely close, pinched between his gloved fingers, ready to be replaced in a fraction of a second if he needed to.</p><p>He took a small breath. A short pause.</p><p>And he looked at your lips - how plump and delicious they were, like a ripe fruit begging to be savored. Slowly, tentatively at first, he kissed you. With soft sounds of wonder breathed into each other, he let it grow deep and full, as if he were trying to memorize it, trying to brand it into his consciousness - the taste of you, the rhythm of your mouth against his, the slide of your tongue like warm velvet. You sighed - some longing and contented sound that melted away all the hardest, coldest parts of him, if only for a moment.</p><p>He moved from your mouth, trailing feather-soft kisses along your jaw, gently dragging his lips up to the shell of your ear. You shivered at the closeness of his breath, how you could sense his subtle trembling.</p><p>“I’m — gods,” he stammered, voice barely at a whisper. “I don’t— <em> do </em>things like this.” You reached out to him, stroking your fingers along the nape of his neck as he continued. “I feel like — I don’t know. I feel like we — understand each other.”</p><p>You could tell how hard this was for him, how much he struggled in voicing things that were so foreign and unfamiliar. The words stumbled and lurched through him as he spoke.</p><p>“Paz,” you shushed comfortingly, turning your head to chastely kiss his cheekbone. You felt some tension release from his shoulders as he slumped down a bit, nuzzling into the side of your neck. “Just take a deep breath.”</p><p>You felt his inhale against your skin, felt how he held it for a moment before letting it whoosh out of him with a quiet groan.</p><p>“I am terrified,” he said, the word clumsy and unwieldy on his tongue, “of how much I’m going to miss you when it’s time for me to go.”</p><p>You silently thanked the Maker that his hand was covering so much of your face, so he didn’t see the dull pain that pierced the backs of your eyes. You felt him draw back, lift the helmet over his head, and slowly slide his palm down to cup your cheek. Your vision was blurred as you blinked back into reality, your focus returning to his bulky frame towering over you.</p><p>“I’m sorry, I — I didn’t mean for this to get heavy,” he said meekly. As if a Mandalorian hunter and infantryman could be meek.</p><p>You knowingly smiled up at him, felt the gently curved corner of your lips press lightly against the warm leather of his glove. You reached up and pushed back the fabric of his sleeve to place a petaled whisper of a kiss on his exposed wrist.</p><p>“I’d like to kiss you as much as I can until you do have to go,” you said. “Is that okay?”</p><p>He nodded. “It’s more than okay.”</p><p>The durasteel partition slivered open, letting in a questioning round of beeps from the driver.</p><p>“You can lower it,” Paz answered, shuffling you upright before fishing out a small handful of credits and depositing them into the droid’s extended receptacle arm.</p><p>“Come on,” he said, extending a hand to help - and hurry - you out of the back seat. “One kiss was not enough.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Did somebody pound my brain with a meat tenderizer? Because this shit got ~soft~.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Never Enough</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Twenty-three days.</p><p>Lavender light softly colored the white walls of your apartment as Paz laid quietly awake. He pondered that number, that measure of time; thought about how much had happened and how much he’d grown to adore you. It had been twenty-three days since he met you.</p><p>The messages from the covert were getting increasingly impatient and frustrated. He needed to go home. Even the mechanic was growing tired of his ship taking up space on the tow lot. The repairs had been long completed. It was time to go. He had the credits by now. Secretly, selfishly, he’d had them nearly a week ago.</p><p>Paz knew this needed to happen eventually. He knew that one day, he would have to say goodbye, to look into your eyes one last time and slip back into the shadows of the Outer Rim.</p><p>Your back was lightly pressed to his chest, naked but for your loose sleep shorts. He tightened the arm he had draped across the dip of your waist, pulled you closer to him.</p><p>For a fleeting moment - a singular whisper of a second - he lifted the bottom lip of his helmet and kissed the warm nape of your neck. You didn’t stir.</p><p>Maybe he could squeeze out one more night. Maybe he could try this again tomorrow morning. He replaced the heavy mask and allowed himself to fall back asleep.</p><p>———</p><p>Twenty-four days.</p><p>It was raining when he woke up; the musical pinging of heavy droplets against your window’s closed slats was the only sound.</p><p>A sudden, rumbling clap of thunder startled you. Paz rolled over and gathered you into his arms, folding you into their safety. His HUD’s weather data readout blinked an angry red in the upper corner of his helmet. Too windy to take off today.</p><p>The corner of his mouth ticked upwards at the news. He drew you just a bit closer, cradling the back of your head with his hand.</p><p>Another day. He’d leave another day. Maybe tomorrow.</p><p>———</p><p>Twenty-five days.</p><p>His dreams were stifling and unsettling, filled with amorphous dreams of collapsing hypserspace tunnels and violent splashes of black paint on canvas. When his eyes slivered open, you were awake, sitting on the floor in your sleep shorts, facing a crate on the other side of the room. The peaceful lavender light - gods, how different it was from his covert’s planet - had turned slightly golden with the brilliance of the morning sun, as if the edges of it became toasted like caramelized sugar in the daytime heat.</p><p>You were painting something set atop the crate. Paz saw the flourish of your brush as you brought it down to a paint tray and swished it through the viscous pigment.</p><p>Blue.</p><p>He pulled back the sheets and slipped off the bed, coming to kneel behind you. A quiet breath tripped halfway down his diaphragm, as if it missed the last step in a staircase. He didn’t really think you would do this; he thought it was just a sweet nothing you’d whispered in his ear. A passing moment of sweetness. Something someone might say but not really mean - not <em> really, actually </em> mean - not when faced with the mundane realities of normal life. Something silly, like saying <em> Run away with me. I need you. </em></p><p>Before Paz’s concealed eyes, sitting topless on the floor of your tiny apartment, you were restoring his armor, repainting each littered silver scratch with expert care. Every gash, every pitted mark from the countless sprays of blaster fire and brushes with enemy blades were being salved over with tenderness, soothed like wounds.</p><p>When Paz had seen his <em> vod’s </em> shiny new armor - back before they relocated off Nevarro - a shameful part of him lit up with jealousy. He longed to look fresh and new again, but there were so many roadblocks - the absence of the Armorer; a lack of credits and resources; a guilt over keeping any beskar surplus for himself instead of earmarking it for future foundlings; not to mention, the fact that there was nowhere he felt safe enough to relax for a few hours <em> without </em>the armor.</p><p>And yet here he was, in nothing but his bucket and underkit, sharing your bed every night. Every night for twenty-five nights.</p><p>And he couldn’t fucking bring himself to leave.</p><p>You knew it was more than just armor. You knew how he wore it like it was his own skin. Over dinner - a meal shared with your cabinets of spice sandwiched between your backs, you on the floor of the kitchen and him in the living area - he’d told you about the first time he put it on. He was just a boy - proud and headstrong and dumb as rocks (his words). He wanted to fight and protect, to learn to provide, but he had a lot to learn. You smiled to yourself as you listened to his stories, and then smiled wider when you realized how much you were smiling.</p><p>Paz traced a gentle line down the middle of your back while you painted, unable to keep himself from touching you and yet unwilling to fully distract from the task. Your lips curled into a soft smile - much like the one you wore over dinner - as you continued working.</p><p>“I can’t wait to see you in this,” you said, leaning down to blend the fresh paint into the existing finish. “Would you like me to do your helmet, too?”</p><p>It was so casual and easy, how you asked him if you could do this unspeakable kindness, how you spoke of his armor and helmet as if it were the most normal thing in the galaxy. How were you <em>aruetii</em>?</p><p>He quickly tried to banish the thoughts from his mind - the ones of you leaving this planet with him, of joining him with his people. Those thoughts had grown frequent and intense as the days lengthened between you. He often pictured you seated amongst the younglings, teaching them how to paint and draw and write. He imagined how much beauty you would bring into his life and the life of the covert, how things may not be easy at first but how could anyone ever not like you when you were so—</p><p>“Paz?”</p><p>He snapped out of his reverie and grinned, moved his hand up to gingerly gather your hair behind your shoulders.</p><p>“Yes, please,” he said, sleep still muffling the edges of his words. “I’ll leave it outside the ‘fresher door. A long shower sounds nice.”</p><p>You twisted back towards him and gave him a sweet smile, peering up at his towering form as he stretched back up to his full height. It was still dizzying to you, how much the sight of his body made you want to shut out the world and lose yourself in the warm embrace of his skin, to blur the edges between you, to sink into the peaceful escape of his arms and his voice.</p><p>An escape — yeah, that was a good descriptor, you thought. An escape from mediocrity and disappointment and not belonging<em> . </em>The sentiment pulled you into a daydream, one you’d been indulging in more and more recently.</p><p>You were no fool; he had to leave at some point. A part of you - some lovesick, mushy part of your brain - fantasized about leaving with him. Starting over. Returning to the Outer Rim where you’d grown up, where you convinced yourself you didn’t belong.</p><p>How ironic, you thought, to still feel that sense of misplacement, even here where you’d worked so hard to run off to. How beautiful and terrifying to feel so at home in his arms, when you knew your time was drawing to a close.</p><p>You turned back to your work and smiled softly as you heard Paz creak the refresher door ajar. He placed the scuffed blue helmet just outside, settling it carefully, almost reverently, before slipping back into privacy. He was thankful for the sound of rushing water. It concealed his long, deep sigh - one that couldn’t seem to calm the conflicting swirls of affection and sadness that intermingled in his chest.</p><p>Showers were good, he told himself. His best ideas always came in the shower. Paz stepped into the spray and let his mind wind its way through this shit maze with a shit ending - how he would say goodbye.</p><p>———</p><p>Stretching back, you admired your handiwork as you heard Paz shut off the water. His armor and helm were placed in two neat rows atop an old dropcloth to dry. A gentle late morning breeze rolled through the open window slats, speeding along the process.</p><p>The refresher door creaked open behind you. You felt him pause.</p><p>“Can you do me a favor?” he asked.</p><p>You hummed a yes.</p><p>“Put on the blindfold and get on the bed,” he said, his deep, natural voice even in tone.</p><p>Your insides launched into momentary freefall as you rose to your feet and padded over to the bedside. The soft strip of Paz’s undertunic was resting in a crumpled pile on the floor alongside a glass of half-finished water. His drinking straw leaned lazily against the cup’s wall, casting a shadow through the prisms of refracted light that shone through the liquid, painting the floorboards in ethereal watercolor sunshine.</p><p>Climbing into the middle of the bed, you sat on folded legs and tied the cloth securely over your eyes.</p><p>“Ready,” you called out, resting your hands over your lap.</p><p>Paz stepped into the room and moved silently to the foot of the bed. The sound of his bare feet against the creaking wood grew louder, until he stopped at the edge of the mattress.</p><p>“Come here,” he invited, slow and smooth.</p><p>You scooted down to the end of the bed and reached blindly for him, slotting your fingers between his as they met halfway. He chuckled low and rumbling, deep in his torso, as he curiously twisted your forearms in his grasp.</p><p>Little blue lines of paint were littered across your skin, cracked and dried along your wrists and hands. Paz hummed contentedly and kneeled, drawing each tiny mark to his lips to trail soft kisses along each one. He pressed pure, unbridled sweetness into your skin, the kind of affection that even he did not think himself capable of.</p><p>You shifted forward with parted lips, eager to feel your mouths meet. When his hands unwound from yours, he cupped either side of your face and kissed you, deep and wanting. You slotted your open mouth against his and lightly nipped his bottom lip, pulling a quiet groan from the base of his throat.</p><p>Slowly, he pushed you back against the bed, never breaking his hot trail of kisses that led from your mouth to your neck. His touch moved to massage your chest and run along your waist - up and down, alternating between grabbing handfuls of your breasts and squeezing the dip beneath your ribcage. He loved the way you writhed beneath him, how those small sounds of submission fell from your lips.</p><p>While the blazing heat of his open mouth moved lower down your body, you twisted your fingers into his hair and tugged, clenching your thighs together. He smiled against your hip with a playful growl.</p><p>“How long until that paint dries?” he asked, slowly peeling your shorts down.</p><p>“Um… f-five or six hours, maybe,” you answered with a breathy waver.</p><p>Paz hummed pensively at your feet and traced his touch up from your ankles to your knees. You chewed on your bottom lip to keep yourself from pushing them open too eagerly, burning alive with anticipation.</p><p>“Plenty of time, then.”</p><p>With steady and sure hands, he unhurriedly pulled your legs open for him, revealing your center to his hungry gaze. He savored the image of you unfurled and waiting for him, squeezed the plump flesh of your thighs, watched your chest lightly stutter through a suppressed, impatient whimper.</p><p>When his hot, open mouth connected with your sex, it was as deep and wanting as his kiss, stirring up hushed groans from behind his ribs. He covered your clit with his mouth, sealing his lips to you as his tongue drew rolling, languid patterns over the sensitive bud. His hands - good gods, those broad, scarred hands - folded one leg up over his shoulder and pinned the other wide to the edge of the mattress. His fingers spanned the back of your knee, holding you open with just enough pressure to let you know he was in control, that this was about him just as much as it was about you.</p><p>Paz hummed into your core, drawing his mouth down to collect your dripping wetness onto his tongue, letting it soak into the coarse hair of his beard.</p><p>“So sweet,” he sighed, swiping a broad stroke up your slit with his lips and tongue before focusing his attention back to your clit. He could feel your legs tensing and shaking against the slope of his shoulder and beneath the press of his palm, could feel how they trembled with your helpless whimpers. Without a warning word, he twisted one finger, and then two, up into your tight heat, groaning eagerly at the wet squeeze of you around his knuckles. A wrecked, keening sound worked its way up every notch of your spine.</p><p>It still felt silly to squeeze your eyes shut this tightly, even as they were shielded behind the safety of Paz’s old tunic. But when he worked at you like this - hungrily, deliberately, like he was trying to wring everything out of you - even the filtered light that managed to pass through the fabric was too much.</p><p>“F-fuck, I love your mouth-th,” you sputtered, distantly registering Paz’s low, preening hum between your shaking legs. “Maker — you’re so <em> good</em>.”</p><p>“Cum,” he grunted, plunging his thick fingers into you harder, focusing in on the spot deep within you that made your body string itself tight.</p><p>And nearly instantly, as if him saying it was all it took, you broke — desperate and annihilating, like a blaster bolt from an overcharged weapon. His firm hand around the back of your knee tightened, keeping you spread wide, giving himself full reign over all of you as he slid his fingers through your slick, pulsing walls.</p><p>He didn’t want to fucking move when you were done. His mouth stayed between your thighs, licking you with less frenzied intensity but the same devoted ardor he began with. He didn’t stop as you gasped raggedly ahead of him, kept up the slow push-pull of his hand in time with laving strokes of his tongue.</p><p>He wanted to do this every day. He wanted you in the bunk of his ship’s quarters, wrapped in furs and thick blankets to shield you from the bitter cold of open space. He wanted to worship you, to kneel at your altar and please you in this way, to love you like this, to watch your skin glow under the soft light of stars through his overhead viewport.</p><p>“Paz — baby, it’s too much,” you sobbed, squirming beneath him. “<em>Please </em> —!”</p><p>He withdrew from you and climbed up the length of your body, sweeping an arm under your waist to hoist you up the middle of the bed. One forearm came down to rest on either side of your head.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” he whispered, peppering kisses along the sides of your face, dipping down to your neck, sheened with sweat. “I couldn’t— I didn’t want to stop.”</p><p>You hummed a satisfied little coo and wrapped your hands around his neck, pulled him in for a kiss. His beard was dampened and sweetly sticky, rich with your sex. You hummed again against his lips, this time a slightly naughty sound that matched the way that your taste on his tongue seemed to kickstart a fresh coiling in your belly.</p><p>With a delicate touch, you ghosted your fingertips down over the sloping curve of his collarbone, tracing into the rough patch of hair along his chest. Fingernails scratched a feather-light path further down, running over the skin of his abdomen, raising goosebumps across every inch until you reached the root of his cock. He shuddered over you, sighing into you as his lower lip was sucked between your teeth.</p><p>“Touch it,” he whispered, barely audible. “Touch me, please.”</p><p>Your heart swelled at the need coloring his voice, how unafraid he was to open himself like this for you, to let the rawest parts of his soul peek through his hardened facade. Sure fingers grasped his base and circled around it, admiring the weight of him against your palm. He was searing hot and throbbing, already subtly hitching his hips backwards to get your touch running along his length. With a roll of your wrist, you pumped and twisted him, rubbing over the slick head of his cock with the heel of your hand to finish each stroke.</p><p>Quiet growls spilled from his throat into your ear, growing in volume with the force behind his upward thrusts into your fist. You let the pressure build, squeezing and stroking him until one of his hands shot out to grip your hip with bruising strength. He was biting your earlobe, rutting into your hand hard enough to pin it against your lower belly, letting small, choked moans escape his lips.</p><p>You shimmied beneath him, wrestling your leg out from underneath his to guide his weeping tip to your entrance. With one more swift thrust upwards, he was sheathing himself into you, splitting you open as you both muffled your cries against each other’s necks.</p><p>“F-fuuuck,” he whimpered, driving up into you, tangling his fingers into your hair. </p><p>It was blissful and burning, being pressed this tightly to him, feeling him move inside you. With the blindfold, you were forced to surrender yourself over to sound and sensation, to the taste of his slick velvet tongue sliding into your mouth, to the scent of the salted, dense air that clung to your skin. Praises and airy gasps floated between you, murmured between kisses and tender bites on necks and shoulders. He increased his speed, fucked into you hard enough for the audible smack of skin to punctuate his words.</p><p>It took a few seconds for you to realize he was speaking Mando’a.</p><p><em> “Liser draar ba’slanar,” </em> he grunted, pulling up more fully onto his forearms to drive deeper into your core. <em> “Draar… mesh’la.” </em></p><p>You reached out for him, your brows knitting together at his strained tone.</p><p>“Paz,” you murmured, dragging your nails up the outside of his chest, curling your grip around his shoulders.</p><p>With a snarl, he sat up fully, pulling your hips up off the bed to slam himself into you, using your body as a counterweight to his thrusts. A crying mewl got punched out of your chest as he pounded you, drilling strong and fast, taking you unashamed and primal and exactly as he wanted.</p><p>“Gorgeous girl,” he growled, snaking a hand up to squeeze your breast <em> hard. </em>You yelped in response. “Too good to me. More than I ever — f-fuck—” he broke off with a curse, digging his fingers into the meat of your hip.</p><p>“Don’t stop —” you gasped out, circling your hand over his against your hip. “Please, <em> please</em>, don’t fuck-ing—”</p><p>His mouth was devouring yours before you could finish. The hand beneath yours - the one splayed across your hip - drew inwards to your clit, rubbing sweeping patterns across the bud, feeling you flutter around him.</p><p>“I’m never stopping,” he grunted against your mouth, pressing firm against the spot where he split you in two. “Never — I- I promise I’ll never stop.”</p><p>Pleading cries tore your throat raw as another orgasm unexpectedly overtook you, arcing like electricity through your body.</p><p>“Fuck, oh stars,” he groaned, shallowing his thrusts as you bore down on him so hard he felt you might push him out of you. “Gods, you get so fucking <em> tight </em> when you cum<em>.</em>”</p><p>You squealed under him, clawing for purchase along his shoulder blades as he sunk in deeper, sliding in another inch with your rush of wetness. He shook above you, rolling and grinding his hips with a faltering rhythm that sputtered like the stunted breaths that fell from his mouth.</p><p>“M-gunna fill you up,” he gasped raggedly in your ear. “Gonna cum so deep in you.”</p><p>You mewled against his neck, holding him tightly to you as every muscle in his body turned rigid and taut.</p><p>“N-need—,” he whimpered, “m’never — <em> m’never </em>letting you go, never, I’m n—”</p><p>With a broken moan, he spilled into you, snapping his hips roughly with each pulse of his cock. You whined sweet praises into his ear, tracing your nails along the slopes of his upper back and the base of his neck, feeling him twitch and spasm through his orgasm.</p><p>When his breathing began to settle, he crumbled on top of you, nearly crushing you under his full weight. You gave him a friendly smack on the back of the arm and squeezed your floor muscles, bringing him back to attention from his loopy haziness.</p><p>“Mm — sorry,” he contentedly huffed, rolling onto his back with you clutched between his arms. He laid you out along his chest and placed his wide palm against your lower back, keeping himself seated in you as he slowly softened.</p><p>“Shit,” he puffed, landing a light smack against your ass. “You are unreal, you know that?”</p><p>You muffled your laugh against the side of his neck, nuzzling into his beard. “I’m very real, Mandalorian.”</p><p>Paz hummed and traced absentminded patterns along your skin. You <em> were </em> real, he reminded himself. It felt like a dream sometimes, like if he rubbed at his eyes hard enough he’d be back in his quarters at the covert, alone. A comfortable silence fell between you as his mind drifted.</p><p>“Can I ask you something?” you lazily whispered, breaking the dead air. You threaded your fingers up into the hair above his ear to gently stroke his scalp and felt him melt down further into the pillows.</p><p>“I’m not pulling out yet, if that’s the question,” he whispered back cheekily.</p><p>You giggled in earnest, feeling his chuckle rumble beneath the shell of your ear. “Perv,” you chided with a smile, kissing the top of his chest. “Not that.”</p><p>There was a shift in the mood as you worked up the courage to ask your question. You’d been dreading this, stewing over the best way to open this door without sounding like you were shoving him out of it.</p><p>“I know you have to leave,” you paused, feeling his mouth twitch down. “I can feel how heavy it’s weighing on you. I’ve been a little selfish… I kept putting off fixing your armor to try and keep you here longer,” you softly laughed. He squeezed your shoulder reassuringly.</p><p>“Thank you for that. You have no idea how much it means,” he said with sincerity. Your eyes felt hot behind the blindfold.</p><p>“Will you come back and see me again?” you asked. The words came out so quiet, so sweetly delicate that it made Paz’s chest tighten.</p><p>You hadn’t broached the topic much - nothing beyond a passing mention of his limited time here and his obligations elsewhere, so this felt… stinging. Like chemicals seeping into a cut you swore had healed. Paz readjusted beneath you and cupped your cheek, drawing your lips up towards his.</p><p>“I will. I’ll come back,” he sighed, pressing a chaste kiss against your parted lips. “Trust me.”</p><p>“Good,” you smiled against his mouth, thankful that the blindfold hid the sadness behind your eyes. “I’m not done with you yet.”</p><p>Paz’s deep voice rumbled in his throat as you kissed the tender spot behind his ear. His cock stirred inside of you, jumping under the attention. When you sank your teeth into the corded muscle of his neck, his hips hitched up against you.</p><p>“Neither am I, little artist.”</p><p>———</p><p>Once his armor dried, Paz dressed himself and brought you up to the roof of your building. The sky had turned from its light golden to a rich shade of burnt orange. He looked gorgeous under the fading light, like a great warrior from a famous holo. The sight made your lungs feel like they were being squeezed - like he himself was a dream, some beautiful fantasy you’d conjured up on a lonely night.</p><p>The sun danced along the top edge of the skyscrapers and floating landing pads, flirting with the oncoming night. Paz held your hand in his gloved one as you both looked out across the landscape, watching speeding cruisers and ships zip by.</p><p>“Are you afraid of heights?” he asked, squeezing your fingers.</p><p>You giggled up at him and shook your head.</p><p>“You sure?” he pressed, his smirk evident in his voice.</p><p>“Positive.”</p><p>He took a measured breath. “Okay.”</p><p>And in one swift motion, he scooped you front-first off the ground to wrap your arms around his broad shoulders and your legs around his hips. With a short grunt, he readjusted the thermal protective skirt on the back of his armor padding, tucking your calves beneath it.</p><p>“Paz — you’re not—”</p><p>“Hold on tight!” he warned before engaging the jet pack from his gauntlet, sending you floating up a few feet off the rooftop. You squeaked in shock and locked your arms vise tight around his neck.</p><p>“Oh fuck oh fuck oh <em> fuck oh fuck</em>—!”</p><p>“I can let you down,” he offered with a teasing chuckle. “But I want to show you my ship.”</p><p>You drew your head back and shot a searching look into his darkened visor.</p><p>“You w—”</p><p>“Do you want to see my ship?” he boomed over the roar of the pack’s engines.</p><p>You tightened yourself against him again, feeling the warmth of his body through the thick plates of armor.</p><p>“I want to see your ship,” you answered into his audial receiver, biting your lip nervously as he raised you both higher.</p><p>You chided yourself, too distracted by your own thoughts to appreciate this once-in-a-lifetime view of your city, of this glittering planet, wrapped safely in the arms of a man who made you feel so intensely without ever showing you his face. Was seeing his ship a good idea? Was being so close to a getaway - so close to the reality of escape - the best thing to do when you knew you had to say goodbye? Did you really want the pain of knowing what his surroundings would be on his journey away from you, during those painfully silent hours of hyperspace travel? What would it look like and feel like to join him? Your stomach churned the whole way to the tow yard.</p><p>When dirty duracrete was securely beneath your feet, you unwound yourself from Paz’s grip and followed him to his ship.</p><p>“This is the Nova Condor,” he said proudly, peering up at the craft. It was large like him, heavily weaponized and marred with dented panels. “My big beauty.”</p><p>The hatch lowered with a groaning sound before locking into place against the floor. Paz started up the ramp and waved you along over his shoulder.</p><p>As the lights came on in the interior, you took in as many details as you could: the large carbonite freezer; heavy crates stacked to the ceiling and ratchet strapped down; his small galley with its extensive spice rack; a larger-than-average sonic shower.</p><p>A droid whirred up the ramp, demanding payment in exchange for his engine keyfob. Paz settled up and shooed the old thing along.</p><p>“Come on up,” he said, making his way to the cockpit ladder.</p><p>After inserting the fob and switching from auxiliary to full power, the flight console’s entertainment system crackled to life. Ear-splittingly loud music blasted from the speakers, making you both jump and laugh.</p><p>“Woops,” he apologized and turned it down. “I was a little fired up on the tow in, I guess.”</p><p>You smirked and turned your attention to the ship’s controls, watching all the buttons and switches illuminate in blocks, and the scanners and sensors begin their startup routines. Although it showed age, it was still an impressive setup - a perfectly retrofitted gunship from an older era, with all the bells and whistles a hunter could wish for.</p><p>“Can I show you my favorite part?” Paz asked. He stood by a small door off to the side and pushed an inlaid button, sliding it open with a soft whoosh.</p><p>You followed him over the threshold and were hit immediately by the scent of him - spiced and woodsy, with the clean snap of fresh soap. The captain’s quarters offered little floor space, but the bed was massive for a ship - big enough for his size and maybe for a companion, too.</p><p>Paz turned towards you in the small space and grabbed your elbow with one hand. His other wrapped around your chin gently, sending butterflies alight in your stomach.</p><p>“Look up,” he said quietly, tipping your chin towards the ceiling. Above the bed was a massive viewport that stretched almost the entirety of the room. You smiled at the thought of him sprawled out atop this bed, bathed in the shimmering glow of passing stars as he slept. The image of it nearly broke you.</p><p>“You are such a romantic. <em> Stargazing?</em>” you joked, hiding the aching tenderness in your heart. “Gods, how does anyone in your clan take you seriously?”</p><p>Paz laughed. “They give me plenty of shit. For a lot more than this, too.”</p><p>You drew closer to him and pressed your cheek against his chestplate. Paz let out a heavy sigh and began to stroke your back in sweeping, soothing motions.</p><p>“Can I ask you something now?” he hummed quietly, rocking you gently between his arms. You nodded against his torso.</p><p>“What if next time I come here —” he started. Your cheeks pulled up and eyes crinkled in the corners at the promise of another meeting. “—what if next time… you leave with me. When it’s time to go.”</p><p><em> Oh sweet stars</em>, you did not expect that. The air disappeared from your lungs, vanishing instantly as if by magic. Paz didn’t let go of you, kept you tightly pressed against his chestplate as if he were afraid you’d run away. You could hear his hammering heart from underneath the repainted steel.</p><p>“You can travel with me, and sell your paintings, or — or, hells, keep selling spice if you want. I’ll protect you — I’ll-I’ll clear a space for you in the hold, and you can have your own little studio,” he rambled. “I want you with me every day. I know it hasn’t been long, I know I can’t give you everything — not… not yet — but I can’t stand saying goodbye, I don’t want to have to give up the one p—”</p><p><em> “Paz,” </em> you interrupted. “Breathe.”</p><p>He exhaled shakily and squeezed you so hard you felt like you were bursting.</p><p>“Did you know I had the credits to leave two weeks ago? And I couldn’t kriffing do it?” he admitted quietly.</p><p>“I had a feeling.” You pulled back from him to look into his visor, wishing you could plant a grounding kiss on his lips, try to calm him down. “Like I said…” you smirked, “...a <em> romantic.” </em></p><p>His shoulders lowered as he exhaled. “This won’t be easy, cyar’ika.”</p><p>“That’s okay,” you nodded, peering up at him with a hopeful, relieved sparkle in your eyes that made Paz’s guts liquify.</p><p>If you were being honest - really and truly honest, totally and completely raw - you knew he was wrong. How could it be anything <em> but </em>easy, when everything felt this right? How could life be hard when his arms, his laugh, were the most comforting haven you’d found?</p><p>“Let’s get you back home,” he said warmly. “I’ll get my bag.”</p><p>Wordlessly, with a glow of contentment radiating from beneath your skin, the two of you exited the ship and tow lot, gently lifting back up into the night sky. This time you let yourself enjoy the view - the shimmering lights of residential towers, the darkened windows of offices and closed storefronts, the buzz and bustle of beings moving about their lives.</p><p>You looked up to the traffic lanes and observed the activity, creating little stories about the ships’ destinations. That elegant cream-colored one smoothly gliding towards a landing pad was a tired spouse returning from business. You imagined their shoulders relaxing down in time with the disengaging thrusters, how the stress would slowly drain from their body as home drew nearer. The flashy red-and-gold number dipping low between luxurious spacescrapers was no doubt on an evening joyride, showing off for their equally beautiful date.</p><p>And far off in the distance, a no-nonsense cruiser - utilitarian and painted a calming shade of blue - climbed upwards towards the vastness of space, disappearing through the haze of the lower atmosphere. You smiled to yourself and clung tightly to Paz, breathing in the warm comfort of his neck.</p><p>You liked to imagine that ship held two lovers, running off and never looking back. Scared but brave, uncertain yet totally sure, all at the same time.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thanks for reading! I almost hit y’all with an angsty ending but changed my mind at the last second because I am ✨soft✨</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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